Cloud, WiFi, and Bluetooth: How Combustion ConnectsUpdated 8 hours ago

Your Combustion setup uses two kinds of wireless, and they do different jobs.

Bluetooth carries your cook to whatever is nearby: your phone, a Display, a Giant Grill Gauge. WiFi exists to carry it further, by handing the data to MeatNet Cloud so you can watch from anywhere with internet.

The thermometer does the thinking

Everything that matters happens on the thermometer itself, not in the cloud and not on your phone:

• Temperature tracking across all 8 sensors
• The cook-time prediction
• SafeCook food-safety calculations

That means the thermometer works the same whether it is talking to the internet, to your phone, or to nothing at all. It records the whole cook in its own memory and catches up when something reconnects.

Bluetooth: the local path, no internet needed

You can run a full cook with no internet involved. Bluetooth gives you live temperatures, predictions, SafeCook, and alarms on your phone or Display, and Combustion tools relay each other to extend range across a yard.

How Combustion's Wireless Works (MeatNet™) explains the mesh, and Wireless Range: What to Expect and How to Extend It covers how far it actually reaches.

WiFi and the cloud: the remote path

WiFi does one job: it uploads your cook so you can check it when you are out of Bluetooth range. A WiFi Booster, WiFi Display or Giant Grill Gauge acts as the bridge, and the data travels through MeatNet Cloud to your phone.

Remote viewing goes through the cloud. There is no local-network-only mode, so if your setup has no internet, you are on the Bluetooth path, which still does everything except let you watch from a distance.

MeatNet Cloud: Setup and Remote Monitoring covers how to set that up.

Open by design

The thermometer broadcasts its data using a published open standard, the Combustion BLE Probe Spec, and our iOS and Android libraries and example apps are open source under the MIT licence.

That is deliberate. It means third-party apps like Crouton can work with your thermometer, appliance makers can use the data, and anyone can build something we have not thought of. No licence fee, no partnership required.

Combustion Developer Resources and What about 3rd party apps? have the details.

Still have a question?

If you are weighing up whether Combustion suits how you cook, or how much of it depends on the internet, email [email protected] and tell us what you are trying to do.

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